Free NO ORDINARY OWL by Lauraine Snelling and Kathleen Damp Wright Page B

was dangerous to a wild bird. Once an animal or bird connected to a human, it made them dangerous to themselves in the wild and to humans. She just hadn’t had a chance to tell them with the Squad busted into two groups, and she and Aneta doing the hard part. She most
certainly
hadn’t told them she had gone ahead and named one of the owls anyway.
    She’d only named Bubo, the smaller owl, because she knew with all the blood that day they’d found them, he would end up staying. Like she wanted to stay. He would get to be in on all the fun of the bird education shows that the Bird Lady did, like the Squad would have the fun of more animal rescues. She was different from Bubo in that they’d do those things without her.
    So not fair.
    Pinch
.
    “Yeah,” Vee took up the lecture, with a hint of a smile in her voice. “He told us that the day Aneta fainted and—well, Esther had to leave.”
    Sure. Make her sound like the one Squader that couldn’t take it. The tightness in her tummy squeezed.
    “I bet he said that ’cause he thinks we’re silly girls who want to wrap them up in baby blankets and have a tea party with them,” Vee finished, curling her lip.
    In a few more steps they would break through the end of the trees that fringed the open space where the buildings were. That’s when Esther first heard the sounds.
    “What’s that?” she asked.
    “Sounds like a bunch of people talking,” Vee said.
    “No, it’s not that. Not people,” Sunny disagreed.
    “Chickens. It’s chickens,” Esther said, listening hard and pulling the monocular from her side cargo pocket.
    Peeking through the pines, the girls saw pens of chickens way off. The different feathered birds scratched here and there, pecking at whatever was on the ground.
    “Esther was right,” Sunny breathed.
    Why was it such a surprise she was right? Esther rolled her eyes. Now what would Imogene do with a chicken farm? How was a chicken farm going to help with finding clues about that Awful Person? Smothering a sigh, she remembered none of the other Squad adventures had been this hard to figure out.
    While Sunny spilled what she remembered her uncle Dave had said about some guy opening a free-range chicken farm a few months ago and that he didn’t seem to know much about chickens or free range, Aneta and Vee squatted down to listen. Each traced sticks through the pine needles. Esther remained a few steps apart, staring at the farm through the monocular.
She
was staying focused.
    What did she care about a chicken farmer and if he knew about raising chickens? The girls kept forgetting the plan was to
help the owls be safe
. The tightness in her tummy gave her a nasty taste in her mouth. Maybe they didn’t care if they solved the mystery.
    She was about to turn to them and yell, “Why don’t you care?” when she caught a flash of something larger than a chicken. Before her brain could tell her legs to crouch, her legs collapsed on their own, thumping her on the pine needles. A man. A man staring right at her while she’d been staring right at him!
    “Uh, guys,” she said, her breath coming in fast bursts, interrupting Sunny who had detoured into a long story about Uncle Dave getting ready to take Aneta’s mother out.
    “—slicked back his hair, and you know his hair. It looked so—what, Esther?” Sunny sighed and paused.
    “We’ve been spotted. He’s coming for us.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell them what the man was carrying.

Chapter 14

    Save the Beake Man!
    R un!”
    “Run fast!”
    Were they kidding? They would all make it back to the mansion, and she’d be stumbling right in the guy’s way. Esther needed a different plan, a better plan. She ran along behind them, looking for a bush, a cave, a secret passageway. Nothing. She sighed and started looking for something else.
    A tree to climb.

    The man passed them and was nearly out of sight in the trees before the girls blew out the breaths they’d been holding. Sunny,